Review In A Nutshell: “The Little Mermaid” meets “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” with a dash of “Mamula” thrown in. It’s 92 minutes of running time, about ten of which are the opening title sequences, making sure you know that the movie was funded by numerous grants from the Polish government.

So as you know, I have a thing for monster mermaid films. Like, I love monster movies (I just gleefully watched Rutger Hauer in Split Second yesterday, only to spend another two hours geeking about it with Best Friend Number Two), and I think cryptids are great, so Mermaid Monster Movies? SCORE.

After watching Mamula/Killer Mermaid back in 2015, I really didn’t think I’d ever be able to find something as good, or as steeped in its own lore, as that. I honestly didn’t. The Serbian Madmen who made Mamula did a great job. I really thought that would be a sort of apex – the sharp dorsal fin sticking up out of the water, as it were – of Mermaid Monster movies.

Boy was I wrong.

I can’t really say that The Lure (Original Title: Córki dancingu, which apparently means “Daughter’s Daughter” in Polish?) is bad, because it’s not bad. It’s actually really good, in that sort of “why is Eastern Europe so obsessed with Disco and late-90’s American Metal?” kind of way. The film is a musical, let’s get that out of the way right now. But it’s not a cheesy musical with lots of weird, pop versions of “Scotty Doesn’t Know” or the like. The songs are almost all integral to the plot, serving to move the action or change a scene effectively.

Usually involving nude breasts.

The movie appears to live on breasts. Almost (but not always) those of the two main characters, Golden and Silver, the mermaid sisters who are brought in to the world of Warsaw’s nightclub musical scene after attempting to draw the father and son of a family musical trio down into the water one night while partying on the beach at the riverside. The menfolk survive (because the mother screams and breaks them out of it), and the girls are somehow instantaneously adopted by the family and brought in to their musical group as part of the business. Eventually, Golden and Silver are made part of the act, including revealing their supernatural natures, where they sing backup, strip, and show their tails by splashing around in enormous burlesque champagne glasses. The people of Warsaw, particularly the club owner, seem to take all these strange things in stride, and in a few blink-and-you’ll miss it scenes, it’s revealed that there are other monster-types roaming around Warsaw, including a Troll (maybe?) who’s had his horns docked, his heavy metal monster band (!!!) and a human cop who is watching Golden (whom she suspects is a repeat murderer preying on drunk men down by the river).

The film goes in to some interesting Nature Vs Nurture arguments, walks firmly through an examination of familial dysfunction, and the nature of youthful sexual infatuation and the desire to become someone you aren’t vs the need to become someone you can be. It’s surprisingly deep (and a little surreal) for a film about a couple of late-teen mermaids who are supposedly only making a lunch break in Poland on their way to America.

Fair warning: other than the blood, of which there is a good amount, there’s also a prolonged surrealistic scene involving surgical procedures. If body horror’s not your thing, you might want to squint or hide behind the couch for this one.

I give it five out of five remoras.

Where I Found It: Netflix DVD, which is apparently where you get all your Eastern European Monster Films, these days.

How Much I Paid For It: My innocence, my ability to believe in happy endings, and my belief that someone could make a movie that didn’t end up with the male romantic lead being a douche.

Points Of Interest: As strange as it sounds, a musical quasi-horror monster film apparently can be played seriously, as this film shows.

The Money Shot: I guess you could call it a Mermaid Oedipal Complex? I’m not sure.

Review: This film was surprisingly good in many ways. Definitely potential here for everyone involved. It’s obviously low budget but the acting wasn’t bad and the director succeeded in startling me once. That says something. (Viewers with less… practice? than I have may find it happening more often,)

So why is this being reviewed here? Its main flaw is the premise behind the haunting. It bugs me. It really bugs me. Like in a way that wrecks all the good bits for me. But I’m not gonna spoil. Give it a view, let me know what you think.

Review: Like 50% of this movie gets the coveted “Not crap” rating. Maybe even 75%. The rest is bringing it down to “kinda crap”. Because seriously, they had my full attention. I was impressed that they went with acting over special effects for most of the film. Probably out of budget concerns BUT still, I thought that the performances were really good from everyone.

HOWEVER, skinny jeans on a slasher killer are just silly. Put ’em on a pretentious vampire or wizard – no issues. But a killer that is so messed up he speaks in grunts and growls? No. Every time I could see the guy’s legs I was distracted by the twigs he was using to walk around on. A killer who looks like a stiff breeze will snap his legs in half is totally NOT menacing at all. The rest of him – fine. The jeans were killing me.

Crazy ass steampunk helmet / soup can gas masks? I have no problem with those.

Then we get to the big reveal. You see the title, you think vampires. For most of the movie you’re thinking vampires. The script hints at it being something else and I was thinking ok, maybe some more obscure mythological creature or something unique for the movie…. Nope.

Where I found it: Amazon Prime

How much I paid for it: An hour and a half

Points of interest: The blooper reel during the credits are pretty enjoyable. Although the parkour joke is probably funnier if you know who that dude is.

Also, one of the characters in this movie wears a skull welding mask like the one in John Dies at the End. I guess those are a thing?

My Favorite Line: Suck on that you alien vampire fuck.

The Money Shot: You have not lived until you’ve seen a vampire dance underneath a corpse with a reusable straw* stuck in the eye socket.. it was like a dog that is impatient for a cookie.

Fans of Rammstein and Dark should not get too excited here. This movie is in a class of it’s own. And that class is about zombie teenagers trying to get laid. I never thought I’d be typing these words together ON PURPOSE but Night of the Living Dorks is a Teen Horror Sex Comedy. Upon finishing the film the best description I could come up with was “It’s cute!”

While this is way more teen movie than horror, fans of zombie comedy should definitely check it out.

Where I found it: This film was part of another reviewer’s massive DVD collection. She loaned it to me months ago and made me sit through it so she could have the DVD back. She twisted my arm. Really. That happened.

How much I paid for it: 1 hr, 29 minutes

Points of interest:
Germans make Hitler jokes. I always wondered if it was still “too soon”…
There was also a gym teach named Stalin and Friedrich Nietzsche Gymnasium.

Second Favorite Line:
Stalin: Performance like that would have lost us the war!
Dork: But we DID lose the war!

]]>https://watched-it-on-purpose.com/night-of-the-living-dorks/feed/0Deep Blue Sea 2https://watched-it-on-purpose.com/deep-blue-sea-2/
https://watched-it-on-purpose.com/deep-blue-sea-2/#respondMon, 23 Apr 2018 14:00:57 +0000http://watched-it-on-purpose.com/?p=567DISCLAIMER:Kat is more considerate than I am and included a spoilers note in her review. So I am noting that here but don’t get used to it. ~ Jenn

Alternate Title: Don’t Fuck With Science (it will bite you in the ass)

Being a huge fan of sharks and enjoying the first movie I was looking forward to this one. I didn’t expect an AMAZING movie but I was hoping for an enjoying one. I was not disappointed! Right from the beginning with the almost James Bond intro it was pretty much constant, no down time. It jumped right into things going wrong. The characters weren’t developed as well as they could be but you got a sense of who the main people were and who you needed to root for. I enjoyed that despite the cheese they did use some practical effects, it wasn’t completely CGI for the sharks. And the people that you wanted to die did. It was more of a remake than a sequel, similar storyline and no mention of the first one. It had an element of sci-fi with the medical aspect, like the first one did, but it wasn’t as prominent. It was definitely a creature feature but was better than SyFy Channel quality.

Where I found it: Rented from Netflix DVD

How much I paid for it: 1hr 34mins

Points of interest:

Filmed in Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa.

Direct to DVD release.

Rated R!

The Money Shot:

There were two!

First was one of the shark handlers just being revived from almost drowning leaning over the pool and saying “Fuck you” to the sharks and having his head bitten off. Total Samuel L Jackson moment.

Second was the billionaire going underwater and screaming at the main shark Bella and then bragging about being her master and she comes up under him and swallows him whole.

Starring: Major Iceborg from the Fifth Element and a bunch of people from Season 4 of Bosch

Review: It started out SO WELL. It was subtle and creepy. The Spiritualist herself was well written. I really liked how well that character was written. She was pretty bad ass. BUT there was no clear line between flash back and the present.. and it needed a SMIDGEN more exposition.

And seriously, if you have any intention of watching this stop reading now.

Because I take this site’s Spoiler Promise seriously, and I tell you it is coming in like three words… maybe.

HOW CAN YOU INHERIT A HOUSE THAT QUICKLY FROM SOMEONE WHO ISN’T DEAD? Like if un-medicated delusional mom is hiding in the walls of an old mansion there’s no body right. And sure she left a note that sounds like a suicide note, but even then.. wouldn’t it be awhile before she could be declared dead? Maybe? And how the fuck did crazy mom kill dad and NO ONE NOTICED HE WAS GONE? This family has no friends, no extended family, no jobs.. He just vanished and no one thought it was weird.

See what I mean about a smidgen of exposition? At some point someone says something about “you mom’s incident” and that implied TO ME that someone knew what happened. But nope, mom was just hiding in the fucking walls waiting for people to kill. Except for that time she went shopping for a rubber Halloween clown mask – I doubt they had that lying around.

Where I found it: Amazon Prime because I’m a sucker for punishment

How much I paid for it: 1 hour and 14 minutes of my sanity

My Favorite Line: Maybe the milk is haunted.

The Money Shot: It might have been the scene where the evil entity possesses the heroine during the seance and she stands up and points accusingly across the room. And everything is tense and people freak out until another spirit touches her arm to bring her back to reality… but the mom character is still alive and the only ghost there is her protective father. So I don’t know who the fuck possessed her so I feel this disqualifies it as The Money Shot.

Starring: A bunch of Bulgarians and some dude from Eastern MA that has been in several movies I need to review.

Review: Roseville was better than expected, but not quite good enough to stay off this site.

Because we need to talk about how they handled the American actor speaking Bulgarian. In that, they didn’t. He spoke English. The character says at one point he understands the language but finds it difficult to speak. I’m curious to know if that was in the script or added after they heard his accent.

Now, on the plus side, his character is from Boston and the actor is from Plymouth and yet he does not SOUND it. Although I bet sure he has those “from southie when angry moments”. So who knows.

Also, his character is a stereotypical annoying American who is really pushy and takes nothing seriously and um… yeah the writers pretty much nailed it.

So in short, it needs better lighting but it was definitely creepy. No convoluted explanations that ruin everything. Worth a watch once. But I wouldn’t say no to a version with a southie accent dubbed in…

Where I found it: Amazon Prime

How much I paid for it: I stayed up way later than I should have to find out what happens. For a 120 minute movie my body started telling me to sleep halfway through but I NEEDED TO KNOW.

Review: A young woman is asked to take realty photos of her family’s soon-to-be-sold vacation cabin. Her boyfriend invites several of their friends along. Aliens invade, survivalist pot-growing conspiracy theorists give exposition, and a whole bunch of blood is spilled.

I’m rating this one “Not Crap” – it’s bad, but it’s not crap.

For a movie that focuses so much on typical 20-something behaviors like weekend parties at family cabins, random roman candles, booze, and drugs, there is (surprisingly) no nudity in this film. That actually serves to make it more believable, honestly, as a lot of films of this caliber use nudity to pad up their lack of characterization. In this case, the actors are actually pretty good – not great, but pretty good. They deliver their lines believably, their emotions are carried through quite well, and there’s a scene near the end between two of the female characters that is touching and a little heartbreaking in its delivery.

The SFX are the winners on this movie, though. They’re just this side of understated – clear FX shots do abound, but they don’t predominate. The aliens are not seen clearly for most of the film, and some of the uses of the FX are actually pretty subtle – the video footage that Sheriff Murphy slow-mo’s through in order to confirm he really did see what he thought he saw, for instance, is done very well, and without a lot of the “perfect zoomed frame” syndrome we see in a lot of movies.

There are moments that I question in the film. How the paranoiac pot farming mountain man knows so much about “The Inner Circle” of the Alien/Government coverup. And why he’s actually 100% correct (as we later find out). Those are quibbles. I do not understand the need for yet another pointless probing scene, but apparently those are de rigeur these days.

Where I found it: Once again, Netflix.

How much I paid for it: 101 minutes. They’re like Dalmatians, but no one makes coats out of them. Mmm. Time coats.

Points of interest: A Vicious Brothers film, with a few call backs to at least one of their other films hidden throughout like easter eggs.

Starring: John Vernon, one of those guys who has been in everything. The blond love interest from Weird Science. Another guy who has been in a ton of tv stuff. And Christoper Titus for like 10 seconds.

Review: Long before we had the scary clown epidemic of 2016, there was a better, simpler time where clowns were just invading our planet to eat us. This time, also known as the late 1980’s brought us the CLASSIC of Western Cinema known as Killer Klowns from Outerspace.

This amazing horror comedy truly stands the test of time. It’s ridiculously over the top and doesn’t take itself seriously. Except for John Vernon’s final scene which is beautifully creeptastic.

The design is genius and having the clowns use commonly known gags as methods of violence and mayhem is perfect.

A true Kult Klassic!

Where I found it: HBO, but lots of streaming channels.

How much I paid for it: I paid for this movie the first time I watched it, probably back in the early 90’s . I paid for it with my innocence and my ability to trust clowns. I am still paying for it today.

Review: Sheriff’s deputy goes out into a remote parkland in a remote California valley to investigate a possible missing persons report, ends up getting body snatched, and turns evil. One of his intended victims steals his car and spends the rest of the film on the radio with a deputy while she drives the car through the park, unable to find her way out for some completely unknowable reason.

I honestly thought that this was a television series called “Invasion,” also from 2005, with a similar alien body snatcher premise. The blurb on Netflix was similar enough that I was snookered – it was not the same thing. I was sadly disappointed.

The movie tries. It really does. But it lacks a lot of things. A sense of scale, for one. Our hapless heroine spends the entire film driving aimlessly through a county park that apparently she has been to a lot, but now she can’t find her way out of? Okay, it’s dark and all, and she’s scared, but she sticks to the road and doesn’t ever seem to stop going in circles. At one point, the road is blocked by a tow truck, but she’s in a police cruiser and the Snatched are actually kind of slow. So why not go around them?

Something else it lacks is consistency. I give them credit for trying to make the Snatched kind of creepy. They make all the regular strange guttural alien noises you’d expect, but then they start talking backwards – I mean, clearly, they were recorded talking and then played backwards – and even when people on the other end of radios hear this, they just pass it off as interference. No one notices that the Snatched are speaking funny. It just… Ugh. It tries. It tries SO HARD.

As with all “found footage” films, this one has a huge amount of tells that show it’s not at all what it claims to be. Thankfully, at the end, the filmmakers thank the other films of this type that have inspired them, but there are a lot of things in the movie that just pull you out. The rising crescendo’s of incidental music, for one. The fact that the CDC supposedly nukes the area, yet the film is intact. The ghosts in the road that the heroine believes are spectres of her own death, yet show up on the camera footage plain as day.

But really the big one for me is the supposed nuke. Tactical nukes exist. They happen. What doesn’t happen is dashcam footage surviving the blast.

It tried SO HARD.

Where I found it: Netflix

How much I paid for it: 81 minutes. Honestly, the film is only about 65 minutes long. The remaining 16 minutes are all end credits. I’m not even kidding. How do you do a sixteen minute credit scroll for a 65 minute film? HOW? WHO DOES THIS?

Points of interest: The saving grace of this film is its execution. It was apparently done in one take. Italics for emphasis: one take. To quote Agent K: That’s tough. That’s double tough.
The Money Shot: Spoiler – just when you think that our distressed damsel is coming back into frame having been Snatched, we discover she’s made it. Almost.